The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPCL) has struck a $741 million deal with the South Korean engineering firm, Daewoo Engineering and Construction Company, to rehabilitate the Kaduna oil refinery.
According to Bloomberg, NNPCL signed the maintenance service contract with the South Korean firm at a ceremony which was held yesterday.
In an issued statement by the company, it stated that, “Under the terms of the agreement, Daewoo will restore production at the inoperative 110,000 barrels-a-day facility to at least 60 percent of its capacity by the end of 2024.
The deal is part of the NNPCL’s efforts to reduce the country’s near total reliance on imported fuel, which for long has been a source of embarrassment for the government, with Nigeria being Africa’s largest crude producer.
The oil company further stated that it has also acquired a 20 percent stake in a vast 650,000 barrel-a-day complex being built outside Lagos by Aliko Dangote, which after repeated delays may enter production later this year.
The Federal Government has said that it will remove the costly subsidy in June, even though a new administration will be in the office by then, following elections scheduled for later this month.
“The NNPC will finance Daewoo’s “quick-fix” turnaround work at the Kaduna plant — which was commissioned in 1980 — through a mix of its own revenue and third-party financing,” the company said, without identifying any lenders.
The company is already paying Italy’s Maire Tecnimont SpA to rehabilitate two State-owned refineries in the oil hub of Port Harcourt, which have a combined capacity of 210,000 barrels a day, mainly funding the project with a $1 billion loan from the Cairo-headquartered African Export–Import Bank, (Afrexim).
“Once those facilities and another NNPC plant in the southern city of Warri resume production, the company will hire reputable outside contractors to run them”, it said, in the issued statement.
